On the first week of December 2006 I had my first bout of psychotic mania. I was super energetic and delusional, thinking to myself that I was a prophet of God, one of the two witnesses and I was to usher in the return of Jesus Christ. After being euphorically high I fell deep into depression 2 weeks after being high as I felt confused. I was confused because I wasn’t sure if I was to be a prophet or not and this made me angry with God which made me scared of God because I thought He would kill me for being angry with Him. I felt like God played a joke on me by allowing me to believe it and then taking it away when in reality I never heard anything from God, be it yes or no. I felt that the whole universe was laughing at me and that I was alone. I was deeply depressed about this. I was in college whilst going through all this and I could not function because of my depression. My mother had observed my behaviour and deep depression and decided to bring me back home to Ireland as I grew up in the United States. When I arrived home to Ireland in 2007 I was diagnosed with Depression and given anti-depressants. Sadly due to the medication my mood fluctuated rapidly from extreme depression to hypo-mania. I had gotten a job working as a receptionist for a hotel. The stress of the job made me have a nervous break-down at which point in my depression and frustration I threw my phone through a window and rang my mom in hysterics. She collected me and I soon went to see a Psychiatrist named Dr Doyle. I was then diagnosed as being Bi Polar and was given a mood stabiliser and I finally could function. Due to tremendous stress I became unwell towards the end of 2008 during my first semester at Limerick Institute of Technology. I was hospitalised and was very unwell. I again believed I was a prophet of God, one of the two witnesses which are mentioned in Revelation 11, Jeremiah 5:14 and Zechariah 4 in the Bible.
I left the acute psychiatric ward terribly confused, drooling, shaking, foggy minded, discouraged, depressed and overly medicated. I attempted to end my life in 2009 over deep despair of my life. I felt useless and that I was a burden to all around me and that I could never get better. I spent from 2009 to 2010 reducing the medicine I was on to only taking one medicine which was a mood stabiliser. I hated taking medicine and at the beginning of 2011 I came off everything. This was a horrible mistake. I became incredibly ill and eventually found myself back in hospital. I was in there for 8 1/2 months from July 2011 to March 2012. I even attempted to end my life again by taking an overdose in July of 2011 prior to admission. I was then free and out of hospital. Soon I found myself having disturbing thoughts that I couldn’t get rid of. I was envision myself in a coffin with my family and friends crying over me. I saw vivid imagery of myself hurting myself. After battling with disturbing thoughts and being OCD about those thoughts I was put back into hospital so I could safely come off of some medicine because my Psychiatrist wanted to put me on a new drug. This drug was Clozaril and since I have been on it I have never felt this good in 8 years! Having gone through the mill so to speak I have now been able to explain coherently and in great detail what it is like to suffer from a range of symptoms and disorders like Anxiety, Mild Depression, Severe Depression, Psychotic Depression, Stability, Hypomania, Mania, Psychotic Mania, Delusional Thinking, Radio/Television Psychotic Ideations, Visual Hallucination, Audio Hallucination, Disturbing Thoughts, Suicidal Attempts, Suicidal Thoughts and Catatonia.
Now that I can look back on all that I have been through I am flabbergasted! I can now relate with many different types of people, I can help fellow service users to be able to communicate their symptoms, I can better equip professionals with regards to understanding disorders more and it has made me appreciate life as a whole. Throughout all these things I was blessed to have been under the care of Dr Doyle who is an amazing Psychiatrist with a big heart and a sense of humour. I’ve grown fond of the man and he is a hero to me because without him I wouldn’t be where I am today.
When my mood settled and I found myself in a good place I was requested to chat with Student Psychiatric Nurses about Bi Polar disorder as Dr Doyle asked me to. I have spoken to Occupational Therapist Students in UL and will be doing it again on the 24th of April, 2014. I love being able to help people and I wanted to make a difference among the psychiatric and psychological communities so I wrote a book detailing my first-hand experiences with being unwell and how I recovered from all these things.
So if you are curious about mental health disorders or you are a family member, friend, Psychiatrist, Psychologist, Occupational Therapist, Occupational Therapist Student, General Practitioner, Psychiatric Nurse or Psychiatric Nursing student then you will find my book to be a valuable asset to own.
Below are the links to Amazon.co.uk or Authorhouse.co.uk where you can buy the book for yourself. Of all the income I make I am giving 10% of my earnings to a charity of my choice. I am currently doing some research to find a charity I would like to assist financially.
http://www.authorhouse.co.uk/Bookstore/BookDetail.aspx?BookId=SKU-000730927
God Bless
Owen Finnegan
